Try different types of books to get kids hooked on reading

"Jimmy the Joey: The True Story of an Amazing Koala Rescue" by Deborah Lee Rose and Susan Kelly, photographs by Susan Kelly, is an informative and fast-paced read.

A young teenage girl wrote to me and told me that she became hooked on reading a few years ago when she picked up a book by historical fiction writer Ann Rinaldi. She said that prior to that book, she had always felt reading was dull and uninteresting. Her viewpoint on reading took an irreversible, dramatic change after she read the "right" book.

You never know what book is going to be the turning point for a child, the book that makes everything click into place where the child suddenly realizes that reading is sensational. That's why it's important to read all kinds of books to children, fiction, nonfiction, historical fiction, humor, poetry, the whole nine yards.

Today's reviewed books are written in a fascinating, engaging way, both fiction and nonfiction. Try them on for size. One of these books might just be the page-turner the two of you have been looking for.

Edward Tulane was an extraordinary china rabbit who was loved by a little girl. She fussed over him so much that Edward began to think of himself almost as highly as the girl did. But when Edward was lost at the bottom of the ocean, he felt his first true emotion: fear.

Caught in a net by an old fisherman, Edward was presented to the fisherman's wife, and she was delighted beyond measure. Edward grew very found of the old couple and was happy with them for a very long time until their cruel daughter came for a visit, stole Edward and tossed him the trash dump. And so, Edward's story continued, of being loved and then lost, then found again by someone new and loved once more.

By the time Edward found himself in a doll shop, he had loved many times, but he had lost all of those people and his heart had hardened. A wise old doll sat on the shelf next to Edward, and he confided in her that he was done with loving; it was too painful. The old doll admonished him.

"If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless," she said.

Then she gently told Edward something that gave him hope: "Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart."

Profound on many levels and superbly written and illustrated, this choice is extraordinary in every way.

"Jimmy the Joey: The True Story of an Amazing Koala Rescue" by Deborah Lee Rose and Susan Kelly, photographs by Susan Kelly, National Geographic, 2013, 32 pages, $16.95 hardcover.

Read aloud: age 4 - 7.

Read yourself: age 7 - 8.

In a forest in Australia, an accident injures a tiny 6-month-old baby koala, separating him from his mother and leaving him alone by the roadside. Fortunately the Koala Hospital team rescue him, heal his wounds, name him Jimmy and care for him, eventually teaching him how to care for himself so he can successfully return to the wild and take care of himself when he is old enough.

Readers will learn lots of interesting facts about koalas, what the Koala Hospital does to rescue and reintroduce koalas back into the wild, and what it is to be a proactive, compassionate person toward all wildlife. Brimming with wonderful color photographs, this informative, fast-paced book is terrific.

In the summer of 1897, friends Stanley Pearce and Marshall Bond were in Seattle when the S.S. Portland steamship docked and 68 disembarked with 4,000 pounds of gold they had mined in the Klondike goldfields. Pearce and Bond, along with thousands of others, couldn't get to the Klondike quickly enough to claim their own fortunes. But the trip was long and arduous, life in the Klondike very challenging, and many prospectors came home with nothing. What would be the fate of Pearce and Marshall?

A true story that reads like a novel and is packed with photographs, maps and more, this exciting adventure will have readers on the edge of their seat.

Nationally syndicated, Kendal Rautzhan writes and lectures on children's literature. She can be reached at her website: www.greatestbooksforkids.com.